Her husband, John, built a monument after she died, with an inscription that begins, "Here lies, in early years bereft of life, the best of mothers and the kindest wife".
[1][2] Cowper, then 58 years old, received a picture of his mother in 1790, given to him by his cousin Ann Bodham.
In response to her giving him the gift, he said, "Every creature who bears any affinity to my mother, is dear to me.
He wrote in a letter that he would rather have possession of the picture "than the richest jewel in the British crown".
[3] The Cambridge History of English and America Literature wrote, "Thanks to the poet's use of detail, the woman and her little son live again before us, and the tenderness of the whole is unsurpassed.